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Deadline reports that Sony Pictures has acquired the rights to an untitled comedy about an autonomous car race. Sent out to test software for self-driving cars on the historic Paris-to-Peking route, "the funniest comedic actors of this generation" decide to take steering wheels into their own hands.

Volvo is hard at work on its autonomous driving technologies, with a staggering array of sensors and systems working in tandem to drive an actual car through real-world traffic. And it aims to put them on the road in a pilot project in Gothenburg within two years.

The autonomous Audi TTS developed by engineers from Stanford University recently went to Thunderhill Raceway to lap the track without a driver inside. It also turned a faster lap than an amateur racing driver.

Daimler boss Dietzer Zetsche doesn't think Google is serious about actually building cars and is just investigating how people use vehicles. He said he sees opportunities to work with the search giant in the future but thinks there is a possibly antagonistic relationship when it comes to data privacy.

Nissan and NASA have announced a collaboration on autonomous drive systems, human-machine interfaces, network-enabled applications, and software analysis and verification. Nissan wants to offer such features by 2016, and fully autonomous cars by 2020.

A report in Autoweek says public adoption of autonomous technology in vehicles will continue with the next-generation A8, which will be able to navigate on its own up to 37 mph, make its way through traffic, find a parking spot and park itself.

Fans of the iconic 1980 comedy flick Airplane! may smirk at the image of a blow-up "autopilot" materializing on the controls of the not-quite-doomed aircraft. Those folks (c'mon, we know you're out there) may now imagine a similar site behind the wheel of a long-haul 18-wheeler. Think of it at Zucker Bros. meets B.J. and the Bear. Or something like that.

An automaker like Audi will always have a number of different research and development projects going at the same time, and some of them might take on very different approaches. At one end, you'll have its racing programs, and at what you'd assume would be the other, self-driving prototypes. But Ingolstadt is preparing to bridge that gap by running an autonomous prototype at racing speed around the famed Hockenheimring.

Not mentioned during the much-hyped announcement event last night for the Tesla Model S Dual Motor "D" and Autopilot "A" options were how much those advancements will cost. Today, Tesla updated the Model S order page and those pesky little numbers are now available. As it turns out, opting for all of the features mentioned last night will add over $18,000 to the price of your $93,400 Model S P85.

Does size matter? It could when it comes to self-driving vehicles and a small new hockey-puck shaped device that, when affixed to a vehicle, shoots out lasers to collect data-mapping points. That data is then used to guide an autonomous vehicle down the road. The size – both of the device itself and the potential price tag – is what's interesting here.

Audi apparently knows how to get to the front of a line when it comes to driverless vehicles. The German automaker had the honor of being the very first company to receive one of California's new autonomous vehicle driving permits. It was a perfect followup to it being among the earliest ones to get a similar permit in Nevada a few years ago.

We all know that self-driving cars are coming. It's not so much a question of If so much as When. And when it comes to General Motors products, we now have something of a date to work with, as Cadillac has announced plans to roll out what it is calling Super Cruise technology in an unnamed new model within the next two years. As you would expect, this new tech can speed the car up, slow it down and keep it in its intended lane, but GM isn't expected to release a fully self-driving car, saying th

Autonomous cars are piloting their way into the wide philosophical sea of ethics. Right now the autonomous cars are unaware of this because the driver's will always comes first, but when we start getting cars that can overrule commands or choose a particular ethical outcome either without or in spite of driver input, we'll have a lot of decisions to make. Which means we have a lot of decisions to start considering right now.

The machine you see in the video here is the Ground Unmanned Support Surrogate. Called GUSS for short – because who doesn't like a handy-dandy nickname – this vehicle, as its proper name suggests, is capable of operating without a driver.

Let's face it, autonomous cars aren't coming; they're already here. From Google's continual testing to promises from Nissan and Mercedes-Benz that the tech is on the way, the only direction that driverless vehicles are moving is forward. Although, we're already seeing the first joking jabs about the potential misuse of the cutting-edge systems like in Conan O'Brien's recent parody, and even the FBI is taking the possibility for abuse seriously.